Answers to your insurance questions

An appraisal is an evaluation of property made to ascertain either the appropriate amount of insurance to be written or the amount of loss to be paid. A professional appraiser can give you the peace of mind when a complete analysis is done of your risk for a business or your commercial operation. This appraisal would include adjustments for inflation. We all know that construction costs have increased dramatically in the last few years.

Be wary of an appraisal because the appraised value on a piece of jewelery may be more of a "selling feature" then an actual price. Sometimes a store will inflate the value by as much as 100%. You might ask how can they do this? Unfortunately it is not illegal and there is no consequence for doing this. Except to you when you overpay for the item. Then you go to insure it and pay for a higher then necessary value. Since these "floaters" can be quite expensive this is something that should be addressed with the insurance company. Ideally, if you pay $2,000 for a piece of jewelery and it can be replaced for that price then that should be the amount of insurance you place.

An appraisal is often done for high-end jewelery, fine art and furs to name but a few. It is recommended that you discuss with your broker or agent the affect of not having adequate insurance or of over-insuring the items that you do wish to protect.